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An interesting proposal from Jake on a different way of defining how service worker fetch events could be handled under various conditions. For now, I have no particular opinion on it. I’m going to let this stew in my mind for a while.

Henrik points to some crucial information that slipped under the radar at the Chrome Dev Summit—the Android OS is going to treat progressive web apps much more like regular native apps. This is kind of a big deal.

It’s a good time to go all in on the web. I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring. Personally, I feel like the web is well poised to replace the majority of apps we now get from app stores.

Jake goes into the details of what exactly is happening when a service worker is installed or replaced.

This is easily the most complex part of working with service workers, and I think I’m beginning to wrap my head around it, but the good news is that, for the most part, you don’t really need to know the ins and outs of this to get started (and dev tools are now making it easier to nuke from orbit if this begins to bite).

Alex runs through the features that a progressive web app must have, should have, and would be nice to have.

In general, installability criteria are tightening. Today’s Good-To-Haves may become part of tomorrow’s baseline. The opposite is unlikely because at least one major browser has made a strong commitment to tightening up the rules for installability.

Right now, this is in the nice-to-have category:

Mobile-friendly, not mobile-only.

Personally, I’d put that in the must-have category, and not just for progressive web apps.

Anyway, read on for some advice on testing and tooling when it comes to evaluating progressive web apps.

The life cycle of a Service Worker—with all its events and states—is the one bit that I’ve never paid that much attention to. My eyes just glaze over when it comes to installation, registration, and activation. But this post explains the whole process really clearly. Now it’s starting to make sense to me.

Tim outlines the process for getting up and running with HTTPS using Let’s Encrypt. Looks like it’s pretty straightforward, which is very, very good news.

I’m using the Salter Cane site as a test ground for this. I was able to get everything installed fairly easily. The tricky thing will be having some kind of renewal reminder—the certificates expire after three months.

Still, all the signs are good that HTTPS is about to get a lot less painful.

Bruce gives a great run-down of what’s involved in creating one of those new-fangled progressive apps that everyone at Google and Opera (and soon, Mozilla) are talking about: a secure connection, a service worker, and a manifest file.

Crucially, in browsers that don’t support it, you have a normal website. It’s perfect progressive enhancement.

This a great proposal: well-researched and explained, it tackles the tricky subject of balancing security and access to native APIs.

Far too many ideas around installable websites focus on imitating native behaviour in a cargo-cult kind of way, whereas this acknowledges addressability (with URLs) as a killer feature of the web …a beautiful baby that we definitely don’t want to throw out with the bathwater.

A beautiful video created on London's Monument. "The installation provides a live stream of continually modified time-lapse images 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. A computer controlled digital camera provides a 360-degree panoramic view from the top of the Monument."